During the past 6 million years, every male and female had to procreate in the exact combination that actually occurred, for the creations described above to take place. That could not possibly be a coincidence. — TheQuestioner

How does that follow? It's reasonable to assume any number of combination would have lead to a similar result.

But perhaps more importantly, I am not quite sure what you mean by a coincidence. A coincidence isn't any less determined than any other event.

Following a different path, these things could have been created sooner, and/or have lead to better creations.

Instead of "That could not possibly be a coincidence.", I should have said "That could not possibly have occurred as a result of free will."

I disagree with your assertion that "any number of combination would have lead to a similar result". Einstein would not have been born from any other two parents, and no other human would have made his discoveries at exactly the same time that he made them, which was required for subsequent discoveries to have been made at exactly the time that they were made.

IIf the parents of the following great composers had not procreated, music would not be as it is today: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Stravinsky.

If Kurt Vonnegut's parents had not procreated, I would not be pondering this issue right now.

Instead of "That could not possibly be a coincidence.", I should have said "That could not possibly have occurred as a result of free will." — TheQuestioner

Why not though? What do you think something called "free will" would look?

I disagree with your assertion that "any number of combination would have lead to a similar result". Einstein would not have been born from any other two parents, and no other human would have made his discoveries at exactly the same time that he made them, which was required for subsequent discoveries to have been made at exactly the time that they were made.

IIf the parents of the following great composers had not procreated, music would not be as it is today: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Stravinsky. — TheQuestioner

The problem with this argument is observer bias. We only have access to one timeline, the one we live in. In any other timeline, "we" do not exist, something else does, which might be more or less similar to us. So any assertion that a specific sequence of events could be changed so that "we" experience a different reality is false. We will always experience the timeline we are already part of, no specific sequence of events is required.

In response to your assertion that another timeline might be similar to the present timeline, consider a person that causes other people to become violent. Some people (not all) may not have become violent if that person never existed.
If you removed one important person from the timeline (e.g. Hitler), the "other timeline" would have been much different from the present timeline.

We do not know if the world would have been a "better place" if Hitler was never born. It is possible that one of the people he exterminated might have procreated to create someone far worse, someone that could have caused the end of all humanity. We will never know, but we do know that humanity still exists.

We also know that we are using a wonderful technology right now, which allows us to exchange ideas in a manner that was never imagined 50 years ago. In my opinion, this technology was created by a combination of procreations that was not determined by "free will".

In response to your assertion that another timeline might be similar to the present timeline, consider a person that causes other people to become violent. Some people (not all) may not have become violent if that person never existed.
If you removed one important person from the timeline (e.g. Hitler), the "other timeline" would have been much different from the present timeline. — TheQuestioner

It would only be different to a hypothetical observer that somehow had access to both timelines. But all observers exist within a timeline. So the timeline would not be "different" in any meaningful sense of the word. To have a difference, you need to make a comparison, which is impossible.

We do not know if the world would have been a "better place" if Hitler was never born. It is possible that one of the people he exterminated might have procreated to create someone far worse, someone that could have caused the end of all humanity. We will never know, but we do know that humanity still exists. — TheQuestioner

In any world where humanity doesn't exist, we wouldn't know about it. So all these hypothetical worlds are irrelevant.

We also know that we are using a wonderful technology right now, which allows us to exchange ideas in a manner that was never imagined 50 years ago. In my opinion, this technology was created by a combination of procreations that was not determined by "free will". — TheQuestioner

You still haven't actually explained what you mean by "free will" or why you think a specific sequence of events can only happen without it.

By "free will", I mean the assertion that humans can actually make their own choices, instead of following a master plan that is beyond their control

Here is why I think "a specific sequence of events can only happen without it":
I think it is impossible that our current reality is the result of 6 million years of free will. I don't believe that free will would have resulted in such a favorable outcome.

What God wants, God gets

By "free will", I mean the assertion that humans can actually make their own choices, instead of following a master plan that is beyond their control — TheQuestioner

But humans obviously do make choices, at least in their heads. So what exactly do you think would be different if humans had free will? How would the world look?

Here is why I think "a specific sequence of events can only happen without it":
I think it is impossible that our current reality is the result of 6 million years of free will. I don't believe that free will would have resulted in such a favorable outcome. — TheQuestioner

And do you have more to offer than your unqualified belief? Or is this a theistic argument that requires faith?

I can't see any logical reason why you think this specific outcome is so spectacularly unlikely.

Without a master plan, humans wouldn't have lasted 100 years. Too many "coincidences" had to happen for the race to last 6 million years.

I don't think we just happened to win the evolutionary lottery. I think there is a well-written "program" whose complexity is well beyond our comprehension, which has compelled us to follow an efficient algorithm.

That "program" includes the illusion that we have free will, and the motivation to succeed and receive recognition, and the pursuit of sex.

The argument of a "master plan" would inevitably require the existence of a being that for the sake of argument we will call "God" i.e. a being capable of crafting a universe and setting each particle in existence on a predetermined path.

Were we to assume the existence of such a being I would then need to question this "favourable outcome" as you call it. The argument could easily be made that any being capable of crafting a master plan of events and being able to predetermine events so far in advance could have easily crafted a better reality than this. I could go on but this would simply become a discussion of "if god is all powerful etc.

The actions of humans are all primitive in nature, the "programmes" and "algorithms" we follow are the same ones our primitive ancestors relied upon to pull them through the ages i.e. fight or flight, the pleasure derived from sex, the built in fear of everything from death to spiders.

The argument proposed that if not for the master plan people like Beethoven, Mozart, Einstein etc would not exist is a flimsy one. They were simply born with innate talents which is all accounted for the way their brains were, for lack of a better term "wired" such mutations are not uncommon in history and is the way genetics works. Without them sure things may not have happened the way that they have, but to say that a master plan exists and is evident because of there existence is not in my view a valid argument. Others may have existed in their place, perhaps is Einstein's parents had not copulated with each other the child she bore with another man may have had a different mutation and excelled in a different field altogether and made advancements elsewhere. We may have very well still arrived here at this very moment but with the sequence of events shifting or we may have arrived at an entirely different state of being from what we currently know (which ultimately leads on the discussion of multiverse theory)

Overall the concept of a master plan would boil down to a religious argument in which neither could provide any suitable argument/proof one way or the other to irrefutably prove the existence of a master plan/pre determined fate or lack thereof.

Without a master plan, humans wouldn't have lasted 100 years. Too many "coincidences" had to happen for the race to last 6 million years. — TheQuestioner

How do you know that? What are you comparing this outcome to?

I don't think we just happened to win the evolutionary lottery. I think there is a well-written "program" whose complexity is well beyond our comprehension, which has compelled us to follow an efficient algorithm.

That "program" includes the illusion that we have free will, and the motivation to succeed and receive recognition, and the pursuit of sex. — TheQuestioner

You can believe whatever you like, but what's the point of posting here if you're not interested in supplying an argument for your belief?

Aside from all arguments presented, without making a choice who is right and who is wrong, and without the assumption of a master plan or with the assumption of it, there is one thing sure: the way things happened.

It is only our perception and inability to process huge number of calculations of data that makes us think that it was a precise plan with a very narrow or non-existent margin of error that precipitated world events, and that the chain would have had a very, very small chance of culminating in today's state of the world should it left be to develop on its own.

I think, instead, that it was causation from moment-to-moment in the history of the world (not just human and not just biological history) which culiminated in today's world, and it had no chance of becoming different, because the causation process at any instant was caused by the immediately preceding caused processes.

In other words, there could have been only one chain of events of reality, because the causational chain determined this.

Another, simpler, but harder to see proof of no aberration from the historical chain of events is that there is only one reality and one history of reality. If there were chances of changing the chain to some other chain, then they did not happen, because they were not there, as reality in our experience does not happen in more than one flow.

A third, even simpler and extremely easily seen proof is that of the OP: god caused this event of chaining events, and he oversaw it, and righted the pieces' movements if they were in the danger of going astray and fouling the plan with their free will.

I don't buy this last explanation, but apparently many people do.

There is, however some value for me in the view of the OP.

If humans had free will, in the sense of classical philosophy, then the causation chain would have been broken at several spots.

This would still culminate in today's state of the world, because the aberrations outside of caused causation would still have a caused effect; the origin of the causing force is random, as the function of free will, but the caused effect would never be retroactively changed, and as there is only one flow of reality of the entire existence, it is clear that free will is not a factor that needed to be avoided to arrive at today's state of the world.

This assumes that the master plan view of how the world became to be as it is today is not valid.

In other word: the OP simply had a choice, which he had worked out rather skillfully: "Either I believe in God, or in Free Will, but I can't believe in both when I look at today's world, and the chances humankind, the remerkable dolts that we are, had in my opinion to develop it. So given that reality is real, I choose that God exists and free will does not."

I believe god does not, and free will does not.

Some believe god does, and free will does.

Some believe that god does not, but free will does.

Yet they all believe that reality is what it is.That is the one, and the only constant that does not change in the world view of poeple, no matter what philosophy they subscribe to.

This is a powerful thing, a peculiar thing, a fascinating thing, because basically the least likely scenario is that reality is what we experience.

Yet they all believe that reality is what it is.That is the one, and the only constant that does not change in the world view of poeple, no matter what philosophy they subscribe to. — god must be atheist

Well, that is kinda the definition of reality. But the point is still important, because we really only experience reality as one stream of information. We feed this into a constantly updating model and receive the causal structure which provides us with a determined path through the past.

But looking at the past we created out of the present, and then treating the present as the surprising bit is really quite odd. There is a past because there is a present, not the other way around.

The laws of probability allows us to see that the "causation chain" must be controlled by an external source that is able to rig the outcome.

What are the odds that:
1. The human race could survive all the pandemics and wars that have occurred in the past 6 million years?
2. Fallible humans would always make the right decisions to sustain the human race? We sure got lucky in WW2, and with N. Korea.
3. Most importantly: Each person reading this overcame the zillion-to-one odds that not only their individual sperm won the 300-million-to-one lottery (in one ejaculation), but all their ancestors won the 300-million-to-one lottery. You, as an individually unique soul, would not be reading this unless the "causation chain" had allowed you to overcome those ridiculous odds.

The laws of probability allows us to see that the "causation chain" must be controlled by an external source that is able to rig the outcome. — TheQuestioner

Pray tell us what these laws are.

What are the odds that:
1. The human race could survive all the pandemics and wars that have occurred in the past 6 million years? — TheQuestioner

I don't know. What are the odds? Do tell me. With the relevant formula for calculating them.

2. Fallible humans would always make the right decisions to sustain the human race? We sure got lucky in WW2, and with N. Korea. — TheQuestioner

We got lucky that millions died because one guy wasn't allowed to go to art school?

3. Most importantly: Each person reading this overcame the zillion-to-one odds that not only their individual sperm won the 300-million-to-one lottery (in one ejaculation), but all their ancestors won the 300-million-to-one lottery. You, as an individually unique soul, would not be reading this unless the "causation chain" had allowed you to overcome those ridiculous odds. — TheQuestioner

Err, no. That argument only works if you think that at the start of the universe, there existed some number of souls X, and only a "zillion to one" fraction of those ever gets incarnated.

Without that assumption, the people reading this are simply the people reading this. There was no lottery because every result is equal. Every possible combination wins.

The laws of probability allows us to see that the "causation chain" must be controlled by an external source that is able to rig the outcome. — TheQuestioner

The laws of probability compares, as a ratio, what the outcome is, related to what the expectation of the outcome is.

There is no probabiliy of causation chain. Or it is equal to 100%. It only appears as a faint probability becasue humans' predictive abilities are limited. If you flip a coin, you don't know if it will come down as heads or tails; but the moment you start the flip, then air resistence, coin weight and velocity, turning speed of it or rotational speed, and the difference in height beteen your fingers that flip the coin and where it will land, and how bouncy this surface is, all considered precisely and with a zero margin of error determine which side will come up. But to humans it's unknown. But only because we are incapable of taking all these factors and find their proper affect on the coin. However, our inability does not affect the coin; it only affects our chance of getting it right whether it will be heads or tials.

In the case of reality, there are an incredibly large numbers of movemets affected by causes. These are all unchangeable, they are all set. Human mind can't fathom their complexity. So it is ONLY TO THE HUMAN MIND THAT THINGS HAVE A LOW CHANCE OF HAPPENING THE WAY THEY DO. To the things, it is the only way they can happen, and at a hundred percent certainty, the things that happen to them.

So your argument is invalid in this assumption and statement, that the laws of probability allows us to see that the causation chain must be controlled by an external source. That is simply not true, when you think of it.

@TheQuestioner Firstly, it would be very disheartening if we don't have free will. Secondly, you claim that the current state of our world is inevitable and then use that to claim we don't have free will. However, to know that the current state of our world is inevitable you must first know that we don't have free will but isn't that what you're trying to prove here? Begging the question.

For my own sake...

MY ARGUMENT
1. We don't have free will (premise)
2. If we don't have free will the current state of our world is inevitable (premise)
Ergo,
3. The current state of our world is inevitable (conclusion)

YOUR ARGUMENT
4. The current state of our world is inevitable (premise)
5. If the current state of our world is inevitable then we don't have free will (premise)
Ergo
6. We don't have free will (conclusion)

As you can see premise 4 is problematic because to claim it means that you've already proven and accepted that we don't have free will (see MY ARGUMENT, premise, line 1) but that's exactly what you're trying to prove (see YOUR ARGUMENT, conclusion, line 6). Begging the question! Circulus in probando!

I'll try a different approach, to prove that free will is an illusion;
1. I would not trust the future of the human race on the free will of the 72 million people that voted for Trump. I will trust the future of the human race on the "program" that dictates their other decisions.
2. Humans allow themselves to be humiliated by dating rituals (especially online dating), and feel guilty if they are not pursuing a mate, because the "program" dictates that they must keep their ancestral river flowing downstream.
3. Most of each person's important choices and decisions are influenced by the drive to procreate, and to protect their offspring. No one had to teach them this, they were born with that instinctive drive. That is the "program" that I am referring to, which controls their free will.

Of course, I can't absolutely prove that free will is an illusion.

However, I don't think you can disprove my theory. I think that the reasons I have expressed in this post present the possibility that my theory is true, so I will give myself 1/2 point.

I would [...] I will — TheQuestioner

Sounds pretty solid to me. :grin:

Most of each person's important choices and decisions are influenced by the drive to procreate sustain themselves, and to protect their offspring individual ideas of what the pinnacle of their combined or overall works, pains, and pleasures will (or should) amount to or ultimately leave behind. — TheQuestioner

FIFY?

That is the "program" that I am referring to, which controls their free will. — TheQuestioner

Yeah we're all totally controlled by our urge to have children. That's why every family has many children as they can, intentionally childless couples don't exist and generally everyone is out there dating and having sex all the time.

That's totally the world we live in.

However, I don't think you can disprove my theory. I think that the reasons I have expressed in this post present the possibility that my theory is true, so I will give myself 1/2 point. — TheQuestioner

You can't disprove my theory that you're an idiot, so I am going to give you -99.5 points for wasting everyone's time.